


Drink From My Bones

by Neffectual



Series: one step forward, two steps back [11]
Category: BritWres, Professional Wrestling, Progress Wrestling
Genre: Angst, Choking, Dark, Gen, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-27
Updated: 2018-08-27
Packaged: 2019-07-03 04:22:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15811245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neffectual/pseuds/Neffectual
Summary: The night before the big showdown with Ospreay, Jimmy Havoc wonders how it came to this, whether he's capable of carrying on, and why he gave a name to the darkness.





	Drink From My Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Title from 'Milk Teeth' by Keaton Henson

Another chance. That’s what he’s got here, another chance, and he only has to go through Ospreay to get to within touching distance of the title again. He thinks back to holding it the first time, the way it felt in his hands, the way it gave him meaning, the way it proved he was doing the right thing, that this was what he was built for. It didn’t matter what trickery he had to use to get it, once it was in his hands, it was *his*. He put his blood into it, his sweat, his – but to admit to tears would be to admit to weakness, and to do that in the dark of the night before he gets his hands on Ospreay is too much, even if only to himself.

He meant what he said – well, as much as he ever does, as much as anything that ever comes out of his mouth can be trusted unless he’s at that hot point of anger where he doesn’t have enough sense to lie. He’s said things, in that state, that he wishes he could pull back and never have even thought, but what’s done is done, and cannot be undone. But the promo video… that was cold anger, when the rage has left, and in the light of the dawn, you know that your hatred goes bone deep, and will never be over until one of you is dead. He thinks, with a twitch of his mouth, that he doesn’t care which one of them it is.

 

The thought passes that as he’s above Ospreay, choking the life out of him, watching the last spark of what makes him the impossible irritation that he is fade away, feeling the grab of hands at his shoulders, trying to pull him away, he won’t know who he’s killed until much, much later. He’s said that Jimmy Havoc only exists because Will Ospreay makes him, but that’s so far from the truth. Jimmy Havoc is every dark thought in the night, every sleepless hour, every haunting dream, every time he reaches out across the bed and there’s no one else there. Jimmy Havoc is armour and iron maiden all in one, keeping him safe from the outside world but keeping the spikes inside and teaching him how pain changes over time, how blood clots, how scar tissue forms until, eventually, you don’t feel it anymore. The pain just becomes part of who you are, and you forget what it was like to be whole.

But James is tired. Jimmy’s tired, too, when it comes to that, tired of late nights and late flights and standing somewhere new that nevertheless looks the fucking same – ring, seats, ropes, same old fight every night, and every night he has to pretend that it isn’t against himself. That’s the difference with Ospreay, when it comes down to it. That’s a fight against everything he hates; the youth, the flexibility, the house and the girl and the fucking fairytale, the ability to just get up and keep going, something he’s never learnt to do. He hates Ospreay with the cold knowledge that he’s never going to be as good as him, that he’s never going to beat him where it really counts. For Ospreay, this could be just another match, just another show, just another town, and it hurts, down in the battered thing Jimmy supposes he has to call a soul, that he’s… not important.

 

Once he was, sure, once he was the opponent that Ospreay wanted to beat more than anything, but that was when he was the gold fucking standard for a match, when he was who you tested yourself against on the scene before heading off to fucking America or fucking Japan or wherever they fucking go these days. Now, he looks at the rest of them, the teenagers coming up, the lot heading off to WWE before their time, too, is done, and feels like a relic of something shameful, something that they won’t admit to, in a year or so. He doesn’t fucking blame them, either. He’s ashamed of himself.

But he’s damned if this match isn’t going to test Ospreay to every fucking limit he’s got. James might lie down for the axe, but if there’s one last ride in Jimmy Havoc, this will be it, this will be the one that brings out all the darkest voices he saves for himself, and pours them down Ospreay’s throat. There’s no need to pull punches now, not with everyone knowing just how much of a wreck he is, but a wreck is only there to tell new ships to be careful of the rocks. Instead, he’ll become what they believed of him, back in the day, the monster they all thought he was, when they feared him instead of respected him, and he thought that was good enough. Now, they laugh at him, and he has to pretend he doesn’t see it, because you can’t break the nose of some grinning eighteen-year-old just for not giving you the proper respect. He’s not quite that far gone yet, but that’s because he keeps most of his hatred for himself, and his own wounds are unseen, but deep.

 

One of them has to die for the other to live, that’s something he’s certain of with Ospreay, that they can’t both exist. They couldn’t both exist in Progress, but they’re never going to stop bringing the little fucker back, because the crowd love him. They couldn’t both exist in the British scene, but the cunt won’t stop coming back, won’t stop buying property, starting promotions, won’t stay the fuck away. So it’s come down to this, now, which is that they can’t both exist in the world. And he’ll fight to stay, of course he will, fight to be the one who survives, but he can’t help but wonder if it’s time. If it’s time that Jimmy Havoc stepped down, stepped away, and he stopped doing this, stopped pretending he’s ever been anything but an interesting mess. But he can’t say that to Ospreay, can’t admit defeat, the wounded old lion insisting on death before the rest of the pack, rather than hand them over willingly. He can’t just roll over. It goes against everything he is.

But in the dark of the night before, up late again, alone, sleep a million miles away, sleep in someone else’s bed, he can’t help but wish he wasn’t Jimmy Havoc. That he’d never given a name to the darkness roiling under his skin. When you name something, you give it power, and while that power is waning, years of fights and pints of blood weakening it, the name still holds him accountable. In the dark, he rolls over, digs his nails into the pillow, and tries to fake sleep. It doesn’t work. Even he doesn’t believe his own lies anymore.


End file.
